SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Oct 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Cabildo de Tenerife has restarted the activity in the Llanos de Mesa reservoir, located in the La Vera area, in the municipality of San Juan de la Rambla, after the re-waterproofing work to which it has been subjected in the last year. infrastructure that allows to supply water to more than 400 farmers after an investment of 515,000 euros
The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, valued the action carried out with “a leading and benchmark technology” and pointed out that this work follows other similar actions such as in Tegueste and Granadilla and soon in La Orotava, where more than one million euros will be invested. euros on the Benijos raft.
Martín explained that “for the Cabildo it is essential, not only to supply water to all the crops on the island, but also to ensure the efficiency of the storage facilities, thereby contributing to the preservation of the island’s natural resources.”
In addition, he commented, “the commitment to water quality is indisputable to favor farmers and ranchers in Tenerife, and we have achieved this after the meticulous cleaning and re-waterproofing work that has been done on this pond.”
For his part, the mayor of the municipality, Ezequiel Domínguez, valued “the work carried out by the Cabildo, through the public company Balten, and that, with the new system, will allow to provide water, not only to the lands of our municipality , but of the whole region. “
In addition, he thanked the installation of a flexible 400 cubic meter water tank during the work, which has allowed farmers to continue with irrigation during this time.
The manager of Balten, Ana Sánchez, explained, for her part, that “much more advanced materials, technologies and controls have been used in the work in waterproofing systems than those that originally existed”, and acknowledged that “the greatest challenge to What the public company has faced during the work has been to continue maintaining the irrigation service in the area throughout the period in which the pond has been empty. “
Details of this type, as well as the technology used, “make it a national benchmark in works and studies of waterproofing ponds, leading projects in agreements with CEDEX. For us, this line of research is essential for growth and continuous improvement of the service we provide, and we will continue to bet on it, “he said.
He also explained that the new challenges for the future lead the company to align itself with the objectives of sustainable development and the circular economy. “We are already on the road, starting projects to implement renewable energy and use waste, as new by-products to be used in agriculture,” he said.
For its part, the technical director of the work, Tatiana Vara, stated that “an improvement of all the pumping systems has been carried out, and the automation of the reservoir system, which was totally obsolete, in order to improve the quality of service”.
In the same way, he explained how the emptying process had been carried out, as well as the proposal of the Rural Development service of the Cabildo de Tenerife, which consists of “the reuse of the sludge extracted after cleaning the pond, a material of high agricultural quality for the improvement of soils of farms of the insular institution, avoiding, in addition, the overload in the landfills “.
During the cleaning and sludge collection process, samples have been taken and analyzed in the Chemical Engineering department of the University of La Laguna, with which Balten has a collaboration agreement.
Also present at the opening ceremony were Javier Parrilla, insular councilor of the Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Area and vice president of Balten, Cayetano Silva, insular director of Agriculture and Rural Development; Jesús Ezequiel Domínguez, mayor of San Juan de la Rambla, as well as his corporation; Manuel Reyes, president of the Cooperativa Las Medianías; Miguel López, insular secretary of COAG Tenerife, and various technicians of the entity.
Parrilla emphasized the need to optimize all the water storage and conduction infrastructures, since “it is essential to have sufficient irrigation, at an adequate cost and with the qualities required to supply the primary sector of the island, the undisputed engine of the circular economy “.
In addition, he added that “these investments are necessary because water is a scarce commodity and these facilities, created in 1986, had never had a comprehensive performance of this magnitude.”
Along these lines, he indicated that the objective is, without a doubt, “for water to be a reality in each corner of the island at any time of the year.”
WATERPROOFING PROCESS
The Llanos de Mesa raft is located at the head of the La Vera area, a place where potato cultivation is a characteristic part of the cultural landscape of the north of the island.
This infrastructure is mainly fed by water from Vergara.
From the Llanos de Mesa pool, thanks to its strategic location, it is possible to transfer water to the La Florida, La Tabona, Buen Paso and Montaña de Taco pools, through the Balten pipeline network, which makes it It works on a fundamental axis to eradicate possible situations of water shortages from Icod to Isla Baja.
The action carried out in the Llanos de Mesa reservoir is part of the reservoir re-waterproofing plan, which began with actions undertaken in recent years in Valle Molina (2019), El Saltadero (2020), and which will be continued with the next waterproofing planned of the Balsa de Benijos, which will start before the end of the year.
